Epsilon, Remember Me
by SmittiMJC
Summary: Caboose's unorthodox recollection of his attempts to bond with Epsilon leading up to his rather...bizarre stories. Updates every Wednesday :)
1. Naked As He Came

He couldn't remember how to put the armor back on. No one had ever let him take it off before. Not alone, anyway, but boredom was a babysitter that encouraged all manner of task. So after prodding the memory unit with his fingers and clunking his helmet against it, he decided he didn't need armor anymore. It was probably in the way. Or worse- maybe it scared Epsilon.

Now, the armor sat in a sloppy pile by Tex's body, shining more from falling in the river than Caboose properly cleaning it. The memory unit was just as uselessly planted beside the two empty armors. _Perfect_!

"See Epsilon! Now you won't be alone when you wake up and Tex and-"

_Oh no, Tex is gone away now_.

His heart fell away from his ribs at the reminder. "Um, Tex went to sleep. but she'll be back. She likes to be mean to you and hit us. Her armor is empty right now. But you're not empty." he lifted the memory unit away with steady hands and carried it to the mouth of blue base, _Epsilons inside. It's not empty._

He sat beside it, naked as the day he was born and sighed.

Before armor time, he was going to need to figure out clothes time.


	2. Tucker

Clothes were easy. Shirts had holes for everything. One for the head and two for the arms. Shorts were even easier. Just two holes. One for each foot. Or leg.

Unfortunately, Epsilon didn't really have the right…body for shirts or shorts.

Caboose left the memory unit by the doorway and returned in 30 seconds with one of Tuckers shirt's that had gotten mixed up with his in the move from Blood Gulch to the new blue base with prinicpal Miller to Valhala. He slid Epsilon through the head-hole and waited.

The unit didn't thank him like he thought it would. It didn't even move. It just sat there wrapped in a greenish-blue shirt.

He turned away from it, "Now I miss Tucker." He mumbled.


	3. Base By The Stream

There was a certain amount of silence that was okay. The type of silence that the birds or the grass or the wind- because the wind made noise too- would fill up. Caboose didn't like silence, but it could be said he at least liked that silence. But that wasn't really silence was it? No…that was just quiet. But quiet was okay too. There were some days- some of the really nice and cool days- when the base was filled with noise, and the canyon was shattered by the soundtrack of their silly war.

Those days when the occasional birds became gunfire.

The yellowing grass became the Reds.

The burning wind became shouts and insults.

And even that was it's own kind of quiet. His heart and his ears didn't tremble or burst from that quiet. And those really, really hot days when no one wore armor (And Caboose had to be helped from his), and the only noise was the haphazard whir of cheap fans they had made Sarge build; those were nice and quiet days too. Wet and uncomfortable, but still quiet. Then there was Church who was all of those noises at once in an angry explosion of sarcasm. Or yelling.

This new silence with just grass and wind?

It was too loud. Not silent at all and he hated it. _A lot_.

At the opening of the base, he rolled over to his stomach, leaving a sweaty signature of his body in his wake. The shirt stuck to his back gathered under his arms awkwardly until he was forced to wiggle around to separate it from his skin.

Epsilon was so lucky. He didn't have to worry about his shirt sucking on _his_ skin. He didn't sweat. _Did he?_ Caboose reached across from him and rested the back of his hand on the unit, he flipped it so his palm was on the unit, then brought it back to his side, dry.

_Nope. Epsilon's didn't sweat_.


	4. Peace Beneath Bare Feet

(A/N: Early chapter tonight :) Enjoy and tell me what you like, what you think and how you feel. critique away and leave me reviews. Reviews make me happy)

His bare feet pressed behind each other as he walked, a gentle padded noise he was learning to like. Feet were so much quieter than armor. Why didn't everyone just use their feet? They never really fought to hurt each other anyway, and feet…feet noises didn't echo like armor did. They didn't make him feel as alone as he was.

Tex's body caught his eye as he recycled his path and he knew without even thinking anymore that it was the 46th time the heap of black had done so. Before the nighttime came he usually reached 128 laps pacing from one corner of the base to the next. And from corner to corner he held the memory unit to his unarmored chest and waited.

Maybe for it to talk. Shiela talked.

"Epsilon…?" he rested his chin on his chest and stopped walking, blue eyes locked on the unit in his arms. It didn't vibrate. It still didn't talk.

"Uum…_Church_?"

Still no talking.

He smiled at it, "That's okay! You don't have to talk yet. Sometimes the quiet is a better sound."

The sentence soured in his mouth. It wasn't better. The quiet was starting to hurt.

"Maybe, um, maybe," He hugged the unit tighter, his feet shadowing the same steps they'd taken all day once more, " I'll just talk for both of us. Then you don't have to." He said cheerfully.

Had he have kept staring at it, he would've noticed the lights that flickered at the sound of his voice.


	5. Innocent Words

_**(A/N) Well I will start by apologizing for not updating on schedule, but there is good news to be had too. My sisters IPhone was my only method of updating before and she left for a week. But my birthday recently passed on super bowl Sunday and my brother bought me a laptop ^_^ Now I will be sure to update faithfully, and for my failure as an author, TWO Chapters will be posted today. One now and another tonight**_

_**I want to deliver a personal thank you to a lovely review from WargishBoromirFan. You are a great drive for this story. Thank you to all 3 of my wonderful story followers (Avia Jenith, EvilNickelbackObsessedTechy and bluesand123) Sorry I'm late guys! And last but definitely not least, thank you to the one person who Favorited this story, The Happy Riolu. Enjoy.**_

"Chair."

_Flicker._

"Turkey?"

_Flicker._

"…Tex?"

The unit purred rhythmically, the vibrations tickling Caboose's nose. He was too close- _Church said to give people space_- but he couldn't help it. Epsilon was flashing lights _and_ making noises. He was trying to talk! He watched the lights dim and felt the vibrating going away. Wide eyed he went on his hands and knees to inspect it.

"Epsilon?"

It flickered once, and with the fading light the joy drained from him as if he had been cut.

"No, Church wait!" The unit brightened and he tried another word to keep it awake, "…best friend?"

_Flicker._


	6. Telling Stories

Tex's ship was too big. Way too big for him to go through all the parts in one day, so that meant work time was over.

Nap time was next.

He dumped his scavenger hunt findings next to Tex's body and made his way to his room. His feet were just as quiet as ever and they didn't echo. They did leave a lot of dirty, dusty footprints behind though. He pouted at the mess church was- _oh._

Church wasn't going to make him clean up anymore. Not until he could do more than light up and be noisy.

And Epsilon really, really liked to be noisy and bright.

Caboose smiled to himself a little. Noisy and bright was better than dark and quiet. Dark and quiet was…lonely? Yes. Very lonely. Because then he would be alone.

He shivered, partially from that thought, and partially because he was cold. How could Valhalla be so hot in the sun-time and so cold at night time? Well it didn't matter, he decided, it was time to figure out how to put the armor back together, so he couldn't track too much dirt. He skipped to his room, where he switched from his last clean shirt to another one of Tuckers and did the same for his shorts. He grabbed his wash cloth on his way back out (singing 'wash time') and went outside to wet it in the stream. (Church said he wasn't allowed to use the sink without him or Tucker.)

He swiped it across his face and plopped down by the bank. Epsilon was probably sleep by now. He had stopped flickering when Caboose had finished his story about how Donut had captured the flag. Stories were great for nap time.

Caboose leaned back into the wet blades of grass under him. It made him a little colder but it was the best way to see the sky. He wiped his running nose with his washrag.

"Church…I wish _you_ could read _me_ a story. Sometimes I forget the stories I want to tell. But that doesn't happen a lot. I am a really good storyteller."

He let his eyes slide shut, and his mind wander. What kind of stories would Church tell? No scary stories.

Some people had nightmares after scary stories or wet themselves.

Speaking of wet…He left the washrag and walked back into the base and into his room where the Epsilon unit lay, already tucked in. He crawled over it and curled into a ball at its side, conscious of his limbs as he did so. As he closed his eyes this time, something wet raced down both cheeks. He wiped the tears away in bewilderment. Crying was for sad.

He was happy. And really,_ really_ tired.


	7. Evening on the Base

Simmons couldn't even say why or how, but an order to '**_scope out those treasonous dirty blues_**' had landed him at the foot of the stream where Caboose had been actively drowning himself to wash a shirt. The water wasn't even deep enough to drown! How in the world was Caboose even still _alive_?

Regardless, for all his initial bitching, he ended up helping the idiot change, washing all of his laundry, helping him fold it and even schooling him on how to use the showers and cook the easier meals that wouldn't cause him to kill himself. Caboose did everything he was told with optimistic abandon. Like a whipped puppy, eager to return to its masters good graces.

"There…"

Simmons folded the last T-shirt and added it to Caboose's pile amazed at the tenderness with which the blue handled it. Or maybe it was just the sight of the blonde without his armor that reinforced his humanity. Caboose wasn't scrawny, but he wasn't a beefcake either. He looked like any athletic man. As well as Simmons could see him in blood gulch, he could imagine him behind a desk at some university- Okay, no. Not university, but he did look like a kid out of class and he was surprisingly methodical about the way he moved his body, his hands. Everything he touched- if he didn't break it- he touched as if it were glass. It was just like Donut's ludicrous prudence during the preparation of his annoying daily wine and cheese hours. Every cup had to twinkle, each slice of cheese had to be pre-ordered from command a week ahead of time in case a bad batch had to be sent back. That meant Donut was ordering cheese _every day_.

Taking off his helmet, he looked at Caboose with a guarded impassivity the blue wouldn't be able to interpret as either amity nor distrust. _No fraternizing with the enemy_. There was nothing wrong with offering him advice though.

"Your clothes would be a lot less dirty if you cleaned your _body_, Caboose."

"Oh."

It was kind of sad. It didn't get any better when Caboose repeatedly called him Donut before quickly spouting an apology. It would've been irritating had Simmons not nearly called _him_ Donut a few times as well. He knew loneliness long before he came to the army. The first person to abandon him was his own father. It had hurt ten times worse when Sarge had labeled him a traitor too and left him with only sheila. Still, he'd had _someone_ then…and even _he_ was lonely. How did someone as delusional as Caboose feel?

He looked him over again as he neatly straightened the piles of clothes. He dealt the task the same concentration as one would give a crying infant.

It was almost like escaping the EMP at Command all over again. Caboose was alone, in need of protection. Except this time he didn't have Epsilon...

He paused to consider Caboose's new paternal mannerisms. The wariness, the calm, the cleaning and the slight exhaustion. But there was no way he had Epsilon. He was supposed to turn it in...

Caboose held his suspicious gaze with matching curiosity, "Simon?"

_No...he doesn't have Epsilon..._

_Or does he?_


	8. Simmons Charmer

"Thanks Simon-"

"Simmons."

"- Yeah, I would've just washed 'em myself, _but _ Church says I'm not allowed."

"Probably would've just killed yourself."

They were back to laundry- well finishing it at least- and against all his better judgement, Simmons had actually fallen asleep and spent the night.

_So much for that._

He glanced at the rookie, "Did Church ever let you do _any_th-"

"_Does."_"

"What?"

"Does. You said '_did_'. "

Simmons raised an eyebrow, apparently forgetting he didn't have his helmet to hide the expression. As Caboose turned back to his clean folded clothes, he looked away too, praying Caboose hadn't caught the incredulous expression.

_ Wait, it's Caboose! He doesn't …he won't understand that. _

Sure enough, when he turned back to him he was met with blue eyes as wide as coasters and a face so thoroughly shaped into confusion he almost felt guilty.

"Simmons? Is your face okay?"

"uh, yeah- look. Caboose," He vaguely recalled the way Sarge had told Grif that Sister was dead and smiled, "If…if you need anymore laundry done, just ask. I do everybody elses anyway…"

"Aw, thanks! That would be _really_ nice. Of you. That would be great."

"Well, then gotta go." He stood up, Caboose mirroring the action.

"Before you go, can you, um…could you help me get my armor on?"


End file.
